Introduction:

For this week of OGN Champions Summer we had the start of the play-offs with the first two sets of the Quarterfinals. Today we review what happened during the games and analyze a little bit the compositions that were played during the opening series of the Quarterfinals, featuring KT Rolster Bullets and CJ Entus Blaze.
Before we get into the games is crucial to note that KT Rolster Bullets had a 7-0 record advantage over CJ Entus Blaze before coming into this series, winning twice 2-0 and  in one occasion, 3-0 sweeping Blaze every time these teams faced each other.

Game 1

Picks and Bans:

Bullets Bans:		Bullets Picks:
Blaze Bans:		Blaze Picks:

Strategy and Composition:

CJ Entus Blaze had a split push oriented composition with strong disengage/engage and a double source of damage output. Having Nidalee being their primary split pusher over Twisted Fate (because of TF weakness in the 1v1 duel with Ahri), and using the later as a straight up carry  along with Kog Maw. Sona and Amumu were a great pick for the Engage/Disengage capability, both offering their AOE stun ultimates.

KT Rolster Bullets came out with a team composition with strong AOE engage and a double tank frontline, featuring Jarvan and Zac, using Cataclysm, Lets Bounce, and Nami’s Tidal Wave as  engage or as a follow up of an Ahri’s Charm. KT’s composition rotated around clearing vision on important areas of the map and then picking up surprise kills, using specially Twitch’s invisibility, Ahri’s Charm and Jarvan/Zacs high mobilty engage.

In-Game

Early Game:

Bullets  started with aggressive wards on Blaze’s blue buff from the get go, stealing it later with Jarvan IV and their botlane. CJE went for defensive wards on top side river and mid-river topside bush, Amumu started red buff. Blaze decided to go for the lane swap between mid-bot, sending TF bot against Twitch-Nami and Kog Maw-Sona against Ahri. Both junglers helped the 1v2 lanes against the hard early push, Amumu got behind because of not having 2nd buff (stolen blue buff) experience.
With a Jarvan IV gank, Insec (on Zac) got first blood on Flame’s Nidalee on the top lane. Two mintues later at 9:50 Nidalee+Amumu return the first blood by killing Insec’s Zac (who had flash on cooldown from the previous gank. 10:22, KT responds to Helios being top by taking an early dragon, the first of the game.
Even after Kakao helping Insec getting first blood, the lane phase still rotated around the top lane, with Ryu focusing his roaming exclusively to the top lane (after re-swapping bot-mid to a 1v1/2v2), pinking his pathing and ganking every time that possible. For Blaze’s side, Helios exclusively camped the bot lane, almost ignoring mid-bot.

Mid Game:

At 17:50 when KT was trying to take their second dragon of the game, Helios engaged on them with Bandage Toss and a 3-man Curse of the Sad Mummy, trading 4 kills for 3, and a dragon for CJ Entus Blaze, only Mafa survived for KT, while Flame and Cpt Jack were Blaze’s survivors.
For this part of the game, after winning a teamfights and a dragon kill, Blaze gained the advantage of having map/vision control, with Nidalee (or TF) mitigating Ryu’s Ahri splitpushing attemps.
With Blaze having map control, Bullets traded taking mid turret by giving up the third dragon of the game (2nd for Blaze). Right after, Insec tried to take down Flame’s Nidalee on KT’s red side jungle, but the trade ended up being 1 for 1 on both supports while Blaze got away with taking KT’s bot inner turret.

End Game:

Almost 30 minutes into the game, with Mafa trying to gain baron vision and generate a pick up on a Blaze member, KT Bullet’s Ryu got a a kill on Twisted Fate on Blaze’s blue side jungle, but Blaze responded by engaging 4v4 on KT, and Flame took down Ryu’s Ahri, evening up the trade 1 for 1 on both mid laners. Blaze continued to take the 4th dragon of the game (their 3rd).
A couple of minutes later, the Bullets finally got what they wanted/needed, they were able to get an engage on an area of the map where Blaze didn’t have enough vision and managed to get 3 kills without losing a single member. At 34:50 of the game, KT Rolster Bullets, with a good timing on Blaze respawns/recalls, managed to sneak a Baron without CJ Entus being to respond to it. With Baron buff, KT was able to bring back their map control and were able to take down some turrets and a dragon from Blaze.
Closing in to 40 minutes, KT got an engage on a way out of position Twisted Fate (Ambition) with Cataclysm, and even after Baron had worn off they had a perfect teamfight/engage, getting a 4 for 0 trade with only Flame surviving for CJ, allowing KT to take down mid inhibitor. Two minutes later another team fight broke out, this time on CJ Entus terms as far as initiation goes, but even so, with KT being so ahead, is was easy for the bullets to take the fight 5 for 3, featuring a Score (Twitch) Quadrakill, allowing them to push for the win.

Game 1 highlights: 

Game 2 (Bullets up 1-0)

 Picks and Bans:

Blaze Bans:		Blaze Picks:
Bullets Bans:		Bullets Picks:

Strategy and composition:

CJ Entus Blaze decided to go for their very well known Flame Vladimir split push strategy, opting for the  late game wombo combo of Agony’s Embrace-Crescendo-Hemoplague followed up by Twitch-Ryze late game insane damage. The weakness with this style of composition for Blaze, was not having any reliable initiation (Flash+Crescendo is effective but not reliable), and no real frontline tanks.

KT Rolster Bullets opted for a heavy AOE hard long range engage composition, featuring Nami’s Tidak Wave, Lissandra Glacial Path (E)+Frozen Tomb (R), Jarvan Demacian Standard (E)/Dragon Strike (Q) + Cataclysm (R), and Oriannas’ Shock Wave on Jarvan or Lissandra, all that initiation combo, followed up by a clean up late game Vayne damage.

In-Game

Early Game:

Both teams started by going deep on the enemy red side jungle and dropping offensive wards, two for each team, then both proceeded to steal the enemy red buff. CJ decided to go for the bot-mid swap yet again, sending Ryze to the bot lane and Twitch-Sona against Orianna in the mid  Both junglers imitated their pathings, finding each other in bot lane and top lane consecutively, blowing flashes top lane, after both barely survived their gank-counter ganks with no casualties.
KT Rolster’s mid outer turret was the first one to fall, sucumbing to a 3-man pressure coming from bot lane+jungle from Blaze. First blood was shed at 12 minutes on a Evelynn gank on Insec from a top lane bush, KT had a quick response by having Ryu coming down to bot lane and getting an ignite kill over Muse’s Sona.
15 minutes in, Blaze sneaked dragon while KT responded by taking Blaze’s mid outer turret. The laning phase was an overall very slow and objective based phase of the game, extremely farm/push centred, with only two kills on a 15 minute  time span, while taking four turrets and two dragons.

Mid Game:

During the mid game, everything turned into Blaze’s favor due to their well known splitpush strategy working perfectly. By having a fantastic wave control and Vladimir unstoppable split push/1v1 duel power in the hands of Flame, Blaze easily re-gained the map and vision control they so much needed to extend their advantages.
At 22 minutes after taking dragon, Cpt Jack got a perfect pick up on Mafa’s Nami and right after on a very cuestionable call, Kakao engaged with E-Q+Cataclysm combo on a 4v5 that ended as a 1 for 1 trade, but with all 3 surviving members from KT having to go back to base while Blaze took down KT’s 2nd tier mid turret for free.

End Game:

A little past the 20 minute mark, while trying to gain vision control over Baron/river area trying to generate an unexpected engage on Blaze, KT had a huge positional mistake allowing Blaze to push straight up to KT’s mid inhibitor turret, forcing them to engage on Blaze from behind (having Insec coming from the side), which resulted on a disastrous exchange for KT. A couple of minutes later, the Bullets tried to sneak Baron and decided to engage on Muse’s Sona evaporating him instantly, but then they fell on a 0-4 trade, finally giving up Baron at the hand of Blaze, 27 minutes in to the game.
With baron buff on, Blaze steamrolled to victory, winning a teamfight at bot, on a 4 for 1 trade, forcing a surrender from KT Rolster Bullets at 30 minutes.

Game 2 highlights: 

Game 3 (Tied 1-1)

Picks and Bans:

Bullets Bans:		Bullets Picks:
Blaze Bans:		Blaze Picks:

Strategy and composition:

KT Rolster Bullets used an AOE hard engage composition, including multiple engage/follow up combinations, with Sona flash+crescendo or Zac Sling Shot+Lets Bounce / Twisted Fate Destiny+Zhonyas and Evelynn Agony’s Embrace. During the early/mid phase of the game, KT’s strategy was to catch Blaze’s team members utilizing Evelynn and Twitch invisibility, coupled with Twisted Fate global presence after level 6. KT focused their strategy around a strong focus on the top lane to stop Flame from split pushing even before he starts, the Bullets would end up over commiting to this attempt of stopping Flame, being their own strategy what set them behind later in the game.

CJ Entus Blaze: Opting for a double late game carry composition with high amount of peel and a double tank frontline. Having Zyra/Jarvan IV as a ranged engage with Grasping Root+Stranglethorns / Demacian Standar-Dragon Strike+Cataclysm and Shen as a ‘’melee’’ engage with Shadow Dash taunt. Having Ryze for the follow up to the initiation with his insane late game damage/tankyness and Vayne for the clean up. Ryze and Zyra were both good picks from Blaze to counter Evelynn’s attempt of flanking them from the sides with Garasping  Roots and Rune Prison.

In-Game

Early Game:

Blaze started the game by invading KT’s blue side jungle, dropping a ward on top-side river and a vision ward on KT’s blue buff bush itself, then circled around banana bush and walked down to KT’s red buff side, dropping offensive wards on the enemy jungle and finally stealing Kakao’s red buff, leaving small lizzards alive and with a ward to check the timer, trying to set Kakao’s Evelynn behind.
CJ team opted once again to do a bot-mid swap, sending their duo lane against Ryu’s Twisted Fate in mid lane, and Ambition’s Ryze against Twitch-Sona on the bot lane. Having a hard time on mid lane, KT decides to counter lane swap sending their duo lane mid after forcing Ryze to back.
Kakao gets first blood on Flame during a gank on top lane, Insec barely survives after getting his passive popped, CJ inmidiately respond by taking down Ryu in bot lane on a Helios gank.
At 8 minutes both junglers encounter top and top lane deaths are equally traded, with Insec killing Flame, and Helios killing Insec. Three minutes later, CJ takes an uncontested dragon after spotting Kakao yet again on top lane, KT responds by taking down Blaze’s top outer turret.

Mid Game:

A couple of minutes before the 20 mark, Blaze takes down the second dragon of the game but KT decides to engage on them, unable to chain their AOE-CC combo, the fight goes on a 1 for 1 equal trade for both teams, Blaze coming out ahead because of the dragon kill. After the fight KT takes down Blaze’s inner bot turret.
During this part of the game, KT had a lot of trouble to take advantage of Insec building a super early Abysal Scepter on Zac, at least until 22 minutes into the game, where on a fight in mid lane they got a 3 for 3 trade and a mid turret after Evelyn-Zac combo instantly blew up Cpt Jack; Blaze responded by taking dragon on respawn.
Seven minutes later, after a failed attempt of engage from CJ, where a 1-man cataclysm resulted on a non-relevant Stand United+Shadow Dash and a Zyra Stranglethorns that hit no one from KT, giving the Bullets an easy 4 for 1,  a 2nd mid turret and a free Baron afterwards, giving them control of the vision and all over the map.

End Game:

At 36 minutes, Ryu, died bot lane to Vane while poopping up Flame’s Stand United, allowing the other four remaining  members of the Bullets take an uncontested second Baron on a brilliant move. After obtaining baron, KT tried to rush a close out, killing inhibitor, taking some kills on Blaze memebers and taking down 1 of the nexus turrets from Blaze, but going back to base right after, fearing the respawning members from Blaze.
On Baron respawn, Insec was caught out of position and forced to go back to base, enabling Blaze to get a clean engage before he could get back, ensuring a 2 for 3 trade, and securing Blaze’s first baron of the game. KT Rolster Bullets waited outside of Blaze’s base, while applying pressure, waiting for Baron buff to wear off.
At 54 minutes after winning a teamfight on a 2 for 3 trade, Blaze was able to secure a 3-man baron, taking down Evelynn and Twisted Fate right after when they tried to engage and burst down Vayne, saved by a beautiful 2-man Shadow Dash from Flame.
Pushing mid lane right after, Blaze caught out KT out of position trying to trade inhibitors, and CJ decided to go for a base rush while not letting KT’s members go back to base, taking down both nexus turrets and the nexust itself at 55 long minutes.

 Game 3 highlights: 

Game 4 (Blaze up 2-1)

Picks and Bans:

Blaze Bans:		Blaze Picks:
Bullets Bans:		Bullets Picks:

Strategy and composition:

CJ Entus Blaze composition was about flanking the opposition with the Evenlynn invisibility Agony’s Embrace + Shen’s Stand United, then following up with Stranglethorn and Explosive Cask, to scatter KT and generate small skirmishes for the late game Vayne to clean up one by one while getting all the peel from Zyra-Shen.

KT Rolster Bullets played a kill-pick up/fast turret push/snowball  composition, with of course Twitch invisibility, Twisted Fate global prescense and Jayce-Elise high mobility combined with high burst capabilty to pick up kills, taking advantage of Jayce’s Hyper Charge and Twisted Fate’s Pick a Card (with Lich Bane Proc) to fast push turrets, and using the early lead coming from two super early dragons (turrets and pick up kills), to snowball and create even more map/vision control.

In-Game

Early Game:

Only 40 seconds into the game, Insec gets first blood on Flame on topside tri bush when Blaze tried to invade the red buff of the Bullets, KT then moved onto Blaze’s blue buff area to drop wards down. Both teams went for the bot-mid swap, sending duo lanes mid and both mid laners to duel at bot.
Under 5 minutes a recurring the series showed up yet again, both junglers with early ganks at the top lane, Insec fell to Flame’s Shen, while Kakao managed to kill Helio’s Evelynn.
The bullets inclined the balance in their favor, going on a 2k gold lead by taking a super early 2 man dragon at 6:21 minutes with Blaze having no vision over it.
At 9 minutes, both junglers encountered once more in the top lane, and yet again traded 1 for 1 kills, this time with both junglers dying to the enemy top laners, with the difference of Insec being able to get a double buff transfer from the trade.

Mid Game:

At 12 minutes KT took the 2nd uncontested dragon of the game, extending their early gold/objective lead even more, going uo to 4k gold lead.
15 minutes in, both junglers meet top lane, where KT come up ahead on the trade, taking 2 kills for an Insec death. 3 minutes later the Bullets take down Blaze’s mid outer turret and takes down the 3rd dragon of the game, extending their lead to 8k gold.

End Game:

Past the 20 minutes mark KT was able to get the first ace of the game in trade for just one death (Insec), allowing th them to do an early 23 minutes baron.
After taking Baron and siegeing mid-bot and Blaze’s Red Side jungle, the Bullets steamrolled through CJ’s bot lane, killing Cpt Jack while taking down the inhibitor turret and the first inhibitor of the game at 26 minutes, following with both nexus turrets and the nexust for the win just thirty seconds later.

MVP	Champion/Role	K/D/A	CS	GPM	Kill Participation
KT Kakao	Elise, Jungle	6/1/10	89	261	94%

 Game 4 highlights: 

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Game 5, Blind pick (Tied 2-2)

Picks:

KT Rolster Bullets Picks:
CJ Entus Blaze Picks:

WTF two Sona.

 Strategy and composition:

CJ Entus Blaze opted for the late game composition on the blind pick game, going with Vladimir, Karthus and Ashe for their high sustained damage scaling late in the game. Their picks were an AOE  teamfighting oriented team, with engage tools on Enchanted Crystal Arrow-Wall of Pain-Crescendo and Vladimir Hemoplage follow up, having Lee Sin to effectively dive the Twitch pick Blaze knew the Bullets would take (Score played Twitch everytime it was open, in four out the five games) and kick him into Blazes death ball of Karthus-Vladimir-Ashe.

KT Rolster Bullets went for a Shen splitpush in an attempt to ”counter” Flame’s Vladimir monster split push. This composition lacked a hard/reliable engage, but had good disengages all around.
KT’s strategy during the game was strongly oriented into picking up easy kills off single Blaze members with by denying Blaze from good ward coverage/vision, utilizing Twitch’s invisibility and Zed-Elise high mobility and burst, also coming into play Shens global presence to pick up kills while Flame freezes the lane deep into his territory as a part of Blaze’s splitpush strategy.

In-Game

Early Game:

Both teams played safe level one strategies, placing defensive wards on river and jungle entraces all around.
KT went for the top-bot swap, sending Twitch-Sona top against Vladimir, and with the help of Elise (even having Lee Sin in the top lane) they were able to push them both out of lane and take down the first turret of the game  at 4:20, Blaze responded by taking KT’s bot turret.
Around 7 minutes and after pushing top lane against Flame’s Vladimir, Insec used Shen’s Stand United on invisible Twitch and catch out Ashe (Cpt Jack) out of position with an invisible taunt and get first blood, then KT followed up by taking the first dragon of the game at 7:50 and Blaze’s bot outer turret, setting the rest of the game with the chance of snowballing an early lead.
Around 10 minutes into the game, the Bullets utilized the advantage of  map control and picked up a kill on Kakao’s Lee Sin in Blaze’s red side jungle, then proceeded to dive Karthus in the mid lane with Sona’s Crescendo + Shen’s Stand United; on the follow up Vladimir took down  Elise in favor of Blaze.

Mid Game:

With a 4k gold advantage growing every minute, the Bullets were able to pick up kills and objectives during this part of the game, slowly extending their lead while trying to close out the game before Blaze’s composition reached their power spike during the late game.
At 23 minutes, with all the map and vision control, the Ryu (Zed) and Mafa (Sona) were able to take down Flame (Vladimir) in the top lane while he was trying to push out a wave of minions. This kill allowed KT to take an uncontested early Baron, which allowed them to extend their lead by taking turrets and pushing Blaze into their base up to a 10k gold lead. A couple of minutes before the 30 mark, Blaze was able to succesfully engage on KT Score with Flame coming flanking from the side (coming from the jungle), winning the trade 2 for 1, gaining time for their composition to grow.

End Game:

The Bullets were able to take down their second Baron of the game just as it respawned. Keeping up the pressure on top-mid lane, having Vladimir mid to stop Insecs splitpushing attemps, KT was able to succesfully engage 4v4 (with Flame coming late due to being mid) on Blaze’s top inhibitor (turret down) taking down 4 members of Blaze while only losing Ryu.
With the 4-1 man advantage and the Baron Buff on, KT was able to push down both nexus turrets and end the game at 33:30 minutes, ending the series 3-2, eliminating Blaze from the play-offs and from direct circuit point qualification to the World Championship (Blaze will still have a change to qualify on Korean Regional Finals).

MVP	Champion/Role	K/D/A	CS	GPM	Kill Participation
KT Ryu	Zed, Mid	7/3/3	279	437	76%

 Game 5 highlights: 

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Final Thoughts:

The Champions: Kennen was a permaban from Bullets trying to keep Flame away from it, coming from Blaze the permabanned champion was Lee Sin, recognizing it was a risk they didn’t want to take, having Insec and Kakao on the same team; another recurrent ban (after game 1 performance) was Ryu’s Ahri.
Twitch was played in all five games (4 time for Score, 1 for Cpt Jack), another important and contested pick was Evenlynn coming from the jungle (2 times for Helios and 1 for Kakao). The only other champion that saw play in all games was Sona, played three times by each support, having a WTF two Sona blind pick game.

The Focus: For what we were able to see during set all the way to the blind pick 5th game, is that both teams, not matter what strategy or composition they played, focused their gameplan around the top lane. During some games it seemed that it only mattered (specially for KT, but with a similar responde from Blaze) to tear the enemy top laner apart, not just win the lane, to completely destroy and set behind the enemy top laner. This pressure came from KT to Flame first to stop him from ”piloting” his team to victory, but during subsequent games, Blaze responded by applying the same amount of pressure over Insec.

The same old; the problem: CJ Entus Blaze had the same problem they always have when they lose a series against a good team. They only play one strategy, over and over, champions and bans change, but their strategy and their way of playing that style of game is always the same.
During all five games Blaze only played splitpush strategy (sometimes more focused on it that others). Their key player for this strategy, their top laner Flame, played only split pushing champions (as expected) having a Nidalee  (AD bruiser) game and two Shen/Vladimir games.
The problem for Blaze with playing the same strategy over and over is that, not matter how good the style is in itself and how good you are executing it, you become predictable and over time, good teams like KT Rolster Bullets (and MVP Ozone last play-offs) develop counter strategies like the one we saw on every match KT won
KT won by playing a pick-up kills strategy, having high mobility-high burst champions roamming around getting small advantages to snowball into obvjectives all that while Flame freezes the top lane to gain a cs lead on his unstoppable 1v1 duelist champions.